Cory Quirino's 'secrets' to being beautiful

By Karen Galarpe, abs-cbnNEWS.com

MANILA, Philippines - Blame it on 5 women--this was what health and beauty icon Cory Quirino said when asked why she chose wellness as an advocacy.

"After exercising in the gym, these 5 women came up to me one time and asked me for tips on how to stay slim and beautiful," Quirino said.

"I told them, 'Wala namang sikreto. Ito lang ang tips:

low fat;

low sugar;

low sodium;

high fiber;

more water;

more sleep, and;

manage your stress.'"

After three months, though, she noticed there were no significant changes in the women. Quirino then decided to join them for lunch and discovered that the women, although they followed her tips, would still eat fatty food and not watch their diet. They would still order lechon but take out the white fat, for instance.

Quirino said those who really want to be beautiful and stay so should do themselves a favor: "Love and respect your body inside out."

"The foundation of beauty is good health. The secret to being beautiful is being healthy," she said. "Health and beauty are synonymous. They are connected!"

And she said the commitment to love and respect one's body should be a commitment to the self, not the guru.

Wellness as a lifestyle

Quirino, who penned the book Forever Young, said a lifestyle of wellness results in good health, which leads to being beautiful.

And to those who think she's all just talk and no walk, she stressed that she lives the wellness lifestyle herself.

Cory Quirino shows off her body scrub made from virgin coconut oil, which she says is good for moisturizing the skin.

In the mornings, before taking anything else, she drinks 2 glasses of lukewarm water with a squeeze of lemon or calamansi. If there is no lemon or calamansi, she adds apple cider vinegar or sukang Iloko. "It's for cleansing the body and for controlling cholesterol," she said.

Quirino follows this up with a glass of maqui juice which she sells under her own brand, World of Wellness (WOW). The maqui concoction is a combination of pomegranate, acai, blueberry, and raspberry juice. "It is high in potency and neutralizes free radical damage which is the cause of illness, aging and inflammation," she said.

And yes, as she has advised the readers of her column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, she herself puts on a body scrub made of virgin coconut oil (another WOW product), and bathes in fresh milk. "Unpasteurized milk is best as it is high in lactic acid," Quirino said.

The wellness guru said she has done much research to find out what natural ingredients would work. "If you come to my house, you'd see that my bedroom looks like a library," she said.

Locally sourced ingredients

And she has found that the Philippines has many natural ingredients that can be used for a lifestyle of health and wellness.

Take virgin coconut oil, for instance. It has been found to moisturize the skin and nourish the hair and scalp as well. Quirino first made a homemade body scrub using virgin coconut oil, but her readers complained that it is messy and could clog the bathtub. And so she decided to have it done by a manufacturer.

Today, she has a range of products using virgin coconut oil--body butter, body scrub, body mist, shower gel, and hot oil treatment--prepared commercially under the Cory Quirino World of Wellness line.

Aside from the virgin coconut oil line, her line of products include a guava soap which can treat skin infection; body mist made of ginger and lemon grass; a scalp lotion and botanical shampoo made of moringa (malunggay) which treats hair fall; food supplements made from ampalaya, banaba, and tsaang gubat; and others.